


An Enigma with Alice Morgan at the Heart of it

by HelenaHGWells



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:02:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenaHGWells/pseuds/HelenaHGWells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How exactly did Alice pull off her parents' murder? As John starts to learn about Alice's past, things become clearer.</p><p>Set immediately after John meets Alice on the bridge at the end of season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Judith

They are back in her apartment. Or, not hers, but where she has been staying. The one she took when she came back. It took a while to get here; John is moving slowly, leaning on her arm for support. Now he sits on the edge of the sofa, wincing as he takes the weight of his leg.

"You need to get out of here. Out of London. The police will be looking for you- you're an escaped felon and you just stabbed someone."

Her expression is indignant. "In self defense!"

He is unmoved. "And then you escaped police custody. You need to leave the city. And preferably the country."

She doesn't dispute this, but a slow smile plays across her lips as she responds. "Are you coming with me?"

"I have some things I need to tie up here."

"I can wait."

He sighs. "You need to leave, Alice. It's not safe for you here."

"I have somewhere I can stay in the meantime. Outside of London. With a friend."

"A friend?" He tries to keep the note of incredulity out of his voice and fails miserably. She seems amused by this.

"Yes, John, I have friends."

He can't resist teasing her. "Who is it, Hannibal Lector? Professor Moriarty?"

She narrows her eyes at him. He grins back and then abruptly winces; his leg is bothering him.

"You should probably get that looked at," she notes, moving to sit beside him.

"Yeah I probably should. How fast can you be ready to leave?"

She indicates her bags that were never unpacked. "I can leave tonight."

"Good. I'm going to hospital. I'll be back later. We'll go see this 'friend' of yours."

He rises awkwardly, wincing in pain, slowly makes his way to the door.

"Why don't I drive you?" she calls after him.

He doesn't turn around. "You need to stay out of sight, Alice."

"You can barely walk. What are you going to do- hobble all the way to St Bart's?"

"I'll get a taxi. Be ready, ok?"

\--

It is dark by the time he returns, freshly bandaged and rattling with bottles of painkillers. He doesn't protest when she announces that she will drive. It only takes a few hours but Luther quickly falls asleep, exhaustion overtaking him. Alice gently wakes him when they pull up outside a brightly lit building on a darkened street in an unknown town.

"We're here," she whispers.

He looks around groggily. "This is where your friend lives?"

"It's where she works. I said we'd meet her here." She pauses, and he waits, sensing that she has more to say. "John, when you meet her, you're going to realize some things. And I'm not going to talk about it, alright? For her sake as much as for mine."

He looks curiously at her but knows better than to push it. Still, Alice is not teasing; her demeanor is... nervous? He has never seen Alice nervous. Not even on the roof with Marwood and a gun pointed at her head. Even then she exuded an air of determined calm and control. Nervous Alice gives him an unsettling sense of foreboding.

He heaves himself out of the car, popping open the bottle of meds and dry-swallowing a couple of pills as he trudges slowly behind her. As they enter the building, orchestral music floats towards them from off in the distance. A woman's loud and commanding voice echoes in time with the beat, issuing instructions. Its familiarity is unsettling. Alice pushes open a door, and they are standing just outside a brightly lit dance studio. One wall is all mirrors, and a bar runs along its middle. A group of leotard-clad dancers are twirling, leaping, falling, leaping again in the middle of the room. A redheaded woman wearing sweats paces around the edge. It is her voice they could hear before, and it is only more authoritative from close up, as the dancers hurry and bend and turn at her every command, striving to stand taller, point their toes, strong legs, bend those knees, lift her higher, look like you give a shit, turn- turn- turn- point- turn- Stop! Stop stop stop. This is no good. Where are your heads this evening? This is not good enough, people! Let's try it again from the top please! The dancers slump and move back towards well-worn starting positions. The woman rubs her forehead in frustration, turns and catches sight of the newcomers at the door.

She is the spitting image of Alice. Luther squints to try and get a better look at her, trying to figure out of it's just the pain meds giving him hallucinations. She is staring back, given momentary pause. But she quickly snaps back to attention and counts off for her students as the music starts to play again. She makes her way slowly towards Alice and Luther. Up close, he can see the differences. But he knows Alice's face very well, and he has the opportunity to look at them side by side. To a stranger, having met one of them only briefly, it would probably not be possible to differentiate. Someone might think they had seen Alice in one place- say, at the shops in town- when really it was this woman, while Alice was back at home. John makes the connections as quickly as Alice knew he would. He stares at her. She refuses to meet his gaze, focusing instead on the woman before her.

"Hello Judy." He catches the nervous edge to her voice, noticeable only through her concerted effort to keep it light, level.

The other woman- Judy, presumably- doesn't smile, but greats them with clear distrust in her tone. "Alice." She doesn't turn fully towards John, but rather side-eyes him. "You must be John. I'm Judith."

He uses the same tone of practiced unconcern as Alice. "Pleasure."

John can feel a wary eye kept on him as Judith addresses Alice. "I'm going to be here for about another hour, watching these oafs butcher Tchaikovsky." She fishes some keys out of her pocket and hands them to Alice. "You know where everything is?"

"I do."

"Good. I'll see you in an hour."

Judith is direct; perfunctory. The practicalities dealt with, she returns to her dancers. He follows Alice back out the way they came; she doesn't look at him but she can feel his eyes on her.

As they reach the car, he decides it wouldn't be breaking their pact to state the obvious. "So, that would be your sister."

"That's right."

"Older or younger?"

"Older."

He wonders if he should push further. Figures he probably shouldn't. Does it anyway. "It must be like looking in a mirror."

"I'm not going to talk about it John."

Undeterred, he keeps going, skirting around the obvious question. "It's funny, in the report on your parents' murder there was no mention anywhere of a sister."

"We've been estranged for a long time. She left home as soon as she was able- when she was sixteen. That was the year I went to Oxford. I never quite forgave her for leaving me."

"But you decided to give her another chance?"

"Yes I suppose. We recently reconnected. I needed help. And family is family, after all."

"Except when it comes to your parents."

There's that devilish smile again. "Yes, well. Quite."

She hops into the driver's seat, and he follow slowly on the other side, wondering how long exactly it will take him to get the full story out of Alice. Not long, he thinks.


	2. Becoming Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets a grilling from the family.

Judith's house isn't far. It's a tall terraced brick building on a treelined street. Alice lets them in. The hallway is small but cozy. They hang their coats and leave their shoes by the door.

"Shall I put the kettle on?"

Alice heads towards the kitchen. She is very familiar with this space- she knows where everything is. If she reconnected with her sister 'recently', it was at least before the Marwood nightmare. Perhaps she had never been in Europe at all- perhaps she had been with her sister the whole time. But there was an element of tension that Luther had noted between Alice and Judith- an uneasiness that might have been connected to him, but that also seemed to indicate that the pair were not fully comfortable together.

He follows her toward the kitchen, but pauses at the door of a darkened room. He flips on the light and walks in. There's a grand piano, a cello on a stand in the corner, a violin in its case, a number of other wind and string instruments tucked away around the furniture. The walls are covered in pictures from plays and ballet performances; dancers and actors taking their bows, a few photos of an orchestra. Clearly where Alice's genius excels in science and logic, Judith's talents lean more towards the creative. Not the 'performative', Luther thinks carefully; Alice is as much about performance as anything.

One of the photos on the wall catches his eye and he steps closer for a better look. It's of two girls, sitting side by side at a piano. One is clearly Alice- very young, probably about twelve or thirteen. The other must be Judith. They don't look so alike in this picture- at thirteen and what must be about sixteen, the age difference was probably enough to prohibit such a direct comparison. The resemblance is there, of course, but Alice is so small and childlike, whereas Judith appears very grown up. They are both smiling in the picture, focused on playing a duet. It's a candid shot- they must have been caught unawares.

It's strange to see Alice with family; strange to imagine her as the younger sister. And stranger still to see her happy. Luther's interaction with Alice has always been as Alice alone- solitary, disconnected, almost outside of time. He saw her as a daughter and a victim for all of half an hour before he realized she was a killer. Seeing her in this picture, she has context and history; both things that have always been conspicuously absent in his dealings with her.

He hears the kettle whistling in the next room and goes to join her, sitting down slowly at the kitchen table and gratefully accepting the steaming mug of tea she pushes towards him. She sits opposite him and watches him take a sip, waiting expectantly for the questions she knows must be building up in him. She knows he will try to resist asking, but he didn't fall into his profession by accident. His sharp, inquisitive mind would be turning the facts over and over, making connections, trying to figure out how they fit together. She can see the cogs whirring in his brain as he eyes her over his mug. And while she swore herself to secrecy for Judith's sake, she knows that he really poses no danger to her sister. Mostly, she just likes having something to hold over him. And more than that, she delights in watching him figure her out.

He fishes his bottle of painkillers from his pocket and shakes a couple out into his hand.

"How's the leg?" she purrs.

"Sore." He washes the pills down with a sip of tea.

"How's the drugs?"

"Not strong enough."

"I could probably get you something better. Do you just want to numb the pain or leave it behind in more of an out-of-body experience?"

He smiles wryly at her. "I think now might be a good time to keep my wits about me."

"We're perfectly safe here, John. You don't have to worry."

His expression suggests that he's not entirely convinced by this reassurance. "I don't think your sister likes me."

"No," Alice replies with characteristically blunt honesty. "She doesn't trust you. But she won't betray us; she wants to help me, and you and I come as a package."

He leand back in his chair, observing her carefully. She returns his gaze; alert, poised, ready.

"Funny isn't it- to go from not speaking for what- fifteen years? More? To aiding and abetting a wanted felon. Plus, whatever else she's done to help you out," he alludes vaguely to the obvious question- how far Judith has gone in order to help her sister. She smiles at his careful probing.

"We were close when we were children."

"You looked up to her."

"Of course; she was my big sister."

"Even though you were cleverer than her?"

"What makes you say that? Judith is very gifted."

"Not like you, though."

"No, not like me."

"Was she jealous of you? Of your brilliance; all the attention you got?"

Alice laughs mirthlessly. "I think she was glad- with our parents focusing all their attention on me, she was able to do whatever she wanted. She was free."

"Ah," things start to make sense. "Were you jealous of her?"

"Jealousy is a waste of time and energy."

"Must've stung though. She did what you couldn't; she got out. Got away from your parents. And you never could. You had to be the devoted daughter, always doing the right thing, making them proud. While Judith, she was out actually living her life."

"I have a life."

"Now. But you had to get rid of your parents to get it."

"You're not wrong in suggesting that my parents' deaths were somewhat... cathartic; freeing. But I don't begrudge my sister the life she chose."

"Even though that life came at the cost of your own?"

A look of mild annoyance crosses her face, as if she's frustrated that she has to explain this.

"It didn't. What my parents wanted, only I could give them. It made no difference whether Judith was around."

"Maybe not to them; but it did to you. 'You never quite forgave her for leaving you.'"

She smiles ruefully, hearing her words repeated back to her.

"No. But I have now."

"She's repaid her debt."

She narrows her eyes at him. "In a manner of speaking."

He's hit the nail on the head, of course. That is her relationship with Judith in a nutshell. She wonders briefly if this insight into her past might not take away some of her mystery- make her a little less interesting. But then, she would be so disappointed in him if he couldn't figure her out. And she knew he would; John reads people so quickly, and the thrill it gives her to see him making the connections, well, perhaps it was worth the risk that he might lose interest. There were always other methods of getting his attention again... John might understand why, but she has an endless capacity for dreaming up new schemes to keep him on his toes.

Her musings are cut short by the sound of keys in the front door. John tenses instictively but Alice lays a reassuring hand on his arm.

"It's just Judy."

He's not sure that makes him feel any better, and his sense of unease isn't lessened by the look Judith casts in his direction when she appears in the doorway.

"Oh good, you got here ok," she says, mostly to herself.

"There's still tea in the pot," Alice indicates the teapot on the counter.

Judith pours herself a cup and John gets up awkwardly, shifting over to the empty seat beside him to make room for her. She eyes his painful movements suspiciously.

"What happened to your leg?"

"I was shot."

"Indeed?" She raises an eyebrow in an understated expression that reminds him immediately of Alice. She turns to give her sister a significant look, as if to say, don't you have enough trouble of your own, without adding this man's baggage to your list of complications?

Alice ignores it. She looks instead at a cardboard box stuffed full of odds and ends that she has just noticed on the floor beside her. "What's this?" she asks, poking at it.

"Oh, just junk from mum and dad's place. We finally finished clearing it out last week. Most of it's gone to charity shops. I kept a few things I thought you might want."

"Like this?" Alice's voice is thick with sarcasm as she smiles brilliantly, pulling a framed photo from the box. It's a family portrait, probably from about the same time as the picture John had seen in the music room, but the feeling it evokes could not be more different. Their father is beaming, their mother's smile is more practiced, tense. The girls look positively miserable.

"You should hang this in pride of place," Alice continues, holding it up against the wall and pretending to admire it.

Her sister responds with rolling eyes. "Oh do be serious. Come on now, put that thing away."

Alice studies the picture more closely with an expression of objectivity.

"Dad's wearing that god-awful sweater of course."

"Of course," Judith responds, sipping her tea.

"Do you have it?" Alice asks.

"I burned it."

This elicits a laugh of pure delight from the younger sister.

"Anyway, that's all junk. But there are some things you might want in the front room- take a look. Anything you don't want can go to Oxfam or in the bin."

Alice is wearing an expression like Christmas morning. "Oh well I can't wait to see what childhood treasures you've salvaged for me!"

She slinks from the room with a smirk of gleeful anticipation. Judith turns her attention to John, whom she has largely ignored til now. He shifts uncomfortably, wishing she would continue her policy of barely acknowledging his presence. She has the sharpness and intelligence of Alice about her, but none of the playfulness. Alice has the attitude of someone who has been pushed to the edge and has thrown caution to the wind, leaving her fate to chance or the universe or whatever other cosmic forces might influence our insignificant existence. But Judith has the air of someone who is very clearly still struggling to maintain control, who is unwilling to just let things happen and not worry about the future. He can see the concern etched into her face- tiny worry lines creasing her brow and knitting it together. But when she speaks her voice is level with practiced calm.

"So. You're a police officer. Chief inspector, I believe?"

"Technically."

"Only technically?"

"I'm getting out. I've had enough."

"Enough of what?"

He sighs. How to put this? "Not being able to do enough. Having to choose between doing the right thing and the legal thing. Thats the trouble with policing- it's all so much more messy and complicated than we like to think."

"So you're choosing Alice's simpler world-view? That's quite the career change."

"I may not agree with Alice's methods, but we are the same, in many ways."

"Simpatico. Yes, she's mentioned. She's quite taken with you. She has risked a lot to help you."

"I know."

"What will you risk for her?"

He shrugs. "Well, I'm here."

"For now. But do you really understand what you're taking on? Who Alice really is?"  
He doesn't appreciate her tone, the way she's sizing him up, the assumptions she's making. "I know who she is."

Judith looks unconvinced. "Really. Well. If you want to make a truly informed decision, I can help you with that. What do you know of her life before she met you?"

"Not much. But probably not much less than you," he counters. "You haven't seen her in over fifteen years."

"Very true. But I know where she came from." She gives him a significant look. "Alice doesn't talk about our parents." It's not a question, it's a statement of fact.

"No."

"Don't you want to know why?"

The question is loaded with meaning- why Alice doesn't talk about them; what they did to make her feel this way; why she killed them. He corrects himself- why she allegedly killed them.

"I think," he responds carefully, "that if she wants me to know, she'll tell me herself."

Judith narrows her eyes at him, still not satisfied. He tries again.

"Look, you don't know me, and you don't trust me. I get that. But I'm not under any illusion about the kind of person Alice is. And I didn't just wake up this morning and decide to throw a 20 year career out the window on a whim. I met her when I was at a crossroads, and she's helped me in more ways than you know. And in many ways I wish she hadn't. I know what she did. I don't need to know why, not unless she wants to tell me."  
"So you're just going to run off with her. Because you're having some sort of existential crisis? How long do you think that's going to work?"

She is unrelenting in her questioning, and it's raising doubts he's been trying to squash down since he left Mary and went to the bridge. That feeling of falling, like he's just jumped off a cliff. He feels completely groundless, and yet, what else was he supposed to do? He's been struggling for years, swimming upstream, trying to fight the feeling of drowning. Even before Zoe's death put him over the edge, his life was already in tatters from everything he'd seen in the Madsen case. How to explain all that to Judith? And then again, why should he? Why does he owe her an explanation?

He knows why, of course. He can read her concern, her guilt, her need to make ammeds to her sister. That feeling of responsibility is strong enough that it's already driven her to do something unthinkable- he doesn't know what role she played in her parents' death, but he can make a good guess. So of course she would regard him with suspicion. He may not have siblings, but he can understand an older sister's distrust of the man with whom Alice appeared to be infatuated- who has until fairly recently been someone who could reasonably send Alice to prison, who has made no promises, and whose word means nothing to Judith anyway. He can't fault her for her misgivings- doubts that he himself still harbours.

"The truth of it is, I've run out of options. I've tried every other path and none of it leads anywhere; I just end up going in circles. This is the only option left. And whatever you think of that motivation, however disastrous it might be, you can believe this: whatever happens, I won't betray her."

Judith continues to watch him carefully, but he thinks he sees her expression soften. She looks like she's about to say more when Alice reenters the room with a flourish.

"What the hell is this?!"

She's holding up a grotesque item of clothing that appears to be a multicoloured onesie.

"Oh," Judith shakes her head. "It's Geoffrey's. He uses it for some kind of performance art."

"You mean to say he goes out in public like this?" Alice's disgust is completely undisguised.

"Yes. And don't tell me you're surprised."

"Where is the insufferable nincompoop?"

"He's been in the city for a few weeks- his play got an extended run. Don't worry, he'll be back tonight. Wouldn't miss a visit from Alice."

"He really needn't put himself out."

"My husband," she notes to John by way of explanation. "Alice's contempt for him is perhaps only matched by his complete adoration of her. Had she met him before I did, they would have made an unbeatable odd-couple."

Alice pulls a disgusted face, still contemplating the garmet. "Should've burned this with dad's jumper."

As the sisters continue their verbal jousting, John watches the exchange, fascinated. Alice has always appeared almost otherworldly in her complete disconnection from any semblance of normal life. He has never seen her working, never known her to have friends, only seen her family dead at a crime scene. She was an enigma, and that was both very attractive, and completely terrifying. Seeing her now, beginning to fit some of the pieces together and to gain some insight into her background, she seems suddenly incrediably real.

If he casts his mind back he can think of only two other times in which her realness has been so apparent; once in the church, after Zoe had left him for the second time, the case he was working was imploding, and he felt ready to give up on everything. The raw honesty with which Alice had spoken to him then had completely changed the way he looked at her. There was no malace; there were no games. She spoke with a careless vulnerability that demanded something of him in return- trust, loyalty, understanding.

The second time came long after that- less than 24 hours ago, though now it seemed as far in the past as that day in the church. Marwood on the roof, pointing his gun at Alice, screaming at John to choose. Since that day in the church he had chosen to align himself with her many times; had trusted her even. And in those times he had felt their meeting of minds; had understood what Alice meant when she said they were simpatico. Never had he felt that so keenly as when he looked into her eyes as Marwood threatened to end her life, and in a silent conversation, agreed on what he should do.

  
Now as he sits in the kitchen with the sister he hadn't known existed until hours earlier, watching Alice interact with someone in such a familiar way, seeing her past manifest around them, he has that same sensation of realness. Of knowing Alice. He feels any doubts about his decision start to slip away.

"I have to make some calls," John says, rising from his seat. "Check in with the office."

It's time to set things in motion.


End file.
